Maud Page Leaves QAGOMA For Art Gallery of New South Wales

by The Editors

Maud Page, the new Deputy Director and Director of Collections at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. Courtesy AGNSW.

On November 11, Maud Page was announced Deputy Director and Director of Collections at Sydney’s Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), roles that were made vacant by Suhanya Raffel’s move to Hong Kong’s M+ as its new executive director.

Commencing her duties at AGNSW in early 2017, Page will leave her current role as Deputy Director, Collection and Exhibitions at Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA). She is the second curatorial team member to leave in the past week, with Curatorial Manager, Asian and Pacific Art, Aaron Seeto accepting the position of director at Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara, Jakarta.

During her tenure at QAGOMA, Page was instrumental in organizing a variety of large-scale projects, such as the 8th Asia Pacific Triennial (2015–16), where she developed the first Indigenous Advisory Group and put in place the Indigenous Engagement Strategy. She oversaw Cai Guo-Qiang’s blockbuster exhibition “Falling Back to Earth” (2013–14), and recently curated New Zealand artist Michael Parekowhai’s retrospective, “The Promised Land” (2015).

Since the late 1990s, Page has been making important contributions to the cultural infrastructure of Australia. In 2006, she managed the opening of QAGOMA’s second building and is now preparing for the Art Gallery of New South Wales expansion project, slated for a 2021 completion. Recognized in both the Australian and international art communities, her wealth of experience and diverse knowledge makes her a strategic addition to the AGNSW team. In a press release for her new appointment, Page states, “We are in a period of unprecedented change in our sector. With this change comes great opportunity for arts institutions to ensure they are responsive and actively engaged in social change.”

Praising Page’s expertise, AGNSW director Michael Brand noted, “As well as being a clear strategic thinker, Maud has extensive curatorial experience across historical and contemporary art . . . We look forward to welcoming Maud to Sydney, where she’s worked previously across a number of organizations and projects, including in Western Sydney.”

QAGOMA director Chris Saines remarked that “Maud has been an exceptional and much-respected and admired contributor to QAGOMA’s curatorial and organizational culture for many years. She is an astute curator and a manager who understands how to truly bring teams together, and she will be greatly missed.”